President George W. Bush has authorized the most significant U.S. diplomatic contact with Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, sending the U.S. State Department’s third-ranking official to Geneva for a meeting this weekend on Iran’s nuclear program, administration officials said.

The decision appeared to bend, if not exactly break, the administration’s insistence that it would not negotiate with Iran over its nuclear programs unless it first suspended uranium enrichment.

Bush’s decision to allow American diplomats to meet with Iranian officials — while welcome — is surprising. In fact, just two months ago, Bush said, in a speech before the Israeli parliament, that those who favor rigorous diplomacy with Iran (including his own Defense Secretary) are supporting a policy of appeasement toward terrorists:

As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

As Bush makes the “most significant U.S. diplomatic contact with Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979,” the question must be asked: Will the right castigate President Bush for seeking the “false comfort of appeasement”?

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